MOSCOW, March 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has proposed that North Korea put 13 issues, including its $8-billion debt to the former Soviet Union, on the agenda of a Moscow meeting of the bilateral cooperation commission March 23.

Konstantin Pulikovsky, the head of the Federal Environmental, Engineering, and Nuclear Supervision Agency (Rostekhnadzor), who is also the Russian chairman of the bilateral commission on economic and technological cooperation, and North Korea's Foreign Trade Minister Rim Kyong Man will attend.

Pulikovsky's spokesman, Yevgeny Anoshin, said Thursday that trade, interregional contacts, cooperation in power generation, metallurgy, mining and forest industries, transport and agriculture would be discussed.

Participants in the upcoming meeting will consider prospects for the use of North Korean workers in Russia, ways of settling North Korea's debts to the former Soviet Union, and the activities of standing sectoral sub-commissions. The venue and timelines for the next, fifth meeting of the commission should also be fixed.

Anoshin said a protocol and possibly a number of agreements would also be signed.

The Russian half of the bilateral commission has gathered in the run-up to the bilateral meeting and said that trade between Russia and North Korea had diminished by $31 million (13%), to $209 million, and that there was a critical imbalance.

According to papers for the meeting of the Russian side of the bilateral commission, North Korea's debt to Russia is $8.8 billion. Negotiations on the debt were suspended in 2002.

Pyongyang is asking Russia to clear almost the entire debt, while Moscow has put forward various scenarios for settling the problem, including swapping the debt for investment or property.

North Korea insists there are legislative restrictions on the implementation of Russia's proposals.